Identity crisis: has the demise of the only national black gay advocacy organization in the United States created a troubling void or a promising frontier?

When the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum announced in August that it had run out of money and was shutting its dooms, many black gay activists began asking, What do we do next? For the first time since 1988, when the group was founded in Los Angeles by activists Phill Wilson and Ruth Waters, the black lesbian and gay populace is without its own national political identity.

The Leadership Forum was created to serve as a bridge between the civil rights and gay rights movements. Some of those who supported that idea are now trying to decide what type of bridge is really needed.

"There's no question the Leadership Forum will be missed," says Mandy Carter, the openly lesbian executive director of Southerners on New Ground, a political group in Durham, N.C. "But I'm trying to look at this as the Mart of something new, something even better. We're going on to a new stage of organizing, and we just don't know exactly how it will look yet."

Citing financial difficulties, the board of directors of the Washington, D.C.-based Leadership Forum announced that it would cease operation after its annual conference in New Orleans in August. In addition to hosting the conference, which brought together straight and gay activists, the group lobbied the federal government, worked closely with other civil rights groups, and served as a clearinghouse for information on black gay life, culture, and politics.

A coalition of leaders and activists associated with the group are now exploring the creation of a new and different black gay political organization. One model, they say, might be based on LLEGO, the National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Organization. The Washington, D.C., political group, which includes HIV/AIDS activism in its mission, has about 30 staff members and a $3 million annual budget. The group receives about half of its funding from grants for IIW prevention. Currently, AIDS-related work specific to African-Americans is handled primarily by the National Task Force on AIDS Prevention.

"LLEGO has been more successful in corporating HIV prevention work into its mission," says Keith Boykin, a former Clinton administration official who served as executive director of the Leadership Forum from 1995 to 1998. "[But,] I personally think we should have more of a political and advocacy focus."

Boykin insists the Leadership Forum could still thrive trader a reconstituted board and staff. "I spent the first year and a haft of my time there trying to get the organization functioning at a basic level," he says. "Once we have a functioning structure, the money will follow. The problem is that the people with money in the black community lack the consciousness and that people with the consciousness lack the capital."

In some ways the Leadership Forum's demise reflects the changing nature of gay politics. Many prominent African-American gay activists are now serving black gays by working with larger groups. Two leading national gay rights organizations, the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, have long strived to integrate their staffs racially and attract African-American members. Today, HRC's staff is nearly one-quarter black.

"HRC and the Task Force have come a long way in terms of integration, but they still have more work to do," says Donna Payne, HRC's constituent field organizer and the group's highest-ranking African-American official. "Neither group can ever fill the void left by the Leadership Forum. When we go to the Black Congressional Caucus or the [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] we need to be able to back up what we say with the structure of a national organization. We need to point to our [black gay organization's] members and [that group's] financial backing."

In addition to the overall integration of black gay activism, the void left by the Leadership Forum may also be filled by those gay activists working within the African-American population generally. In September, for instance, Carter was instrumental in convincing the Durham County Commission, a majority of which is black, to pass a domestic-partnership ordinance.

"The vote reminded people that non-gay African-Americans are very open to looking at gay tights as an issue of justice and fairness," Carter says. "They bought into the idea that the county needs to treat all government employees equally. Much of our work is becoming more and more multicultural and not isolated within the gay community."

Nonetheless, Carter agrees with Payne that some kind of national black gay political group is essential to the movement's future. "If you look at the huge growth of black gay pride marches, you can see there is a lot of interest in having structures of our own," she says of the two dozen or so annual events. "Many of us participate in the nonblock gay pride marches, and they are well-integrated, but a lot of black people also want and need an additional safe place to congregate."

Carter is looking at those black pride events as a potential source of members for a new group. But aside from ongoing conversations with Boykin told others, no clear plans have been made, she says, and it could be some time before that new group emerges.